Western Province beat EP by 7 wickets in the Cricket South Africa (CSA) Provincial T20 Challenge match played at Axxess St. George’s Park in Port Elizabeth on Sunday, 30 March 2014. After winning the toss, EP decided to bat first. They got off to a terrible start losing two early wickets in the third over. Edward Moore fell first off the bowling of Brendan Young, as he edged a delivery to Sybrand Engelbrecht at slip. Two balls later, Kelly Smuts was run out by Shaheen Khan and EP saw themselves in a world of trouble on 9 for 2. Sisanda Magala was the man to save the EP innings, scoring 63 runs off 43 balls. He eventually lost his wicket in the 20th over, also to the bowling of Young. Magala helped his team put up a decent total of 151 for the loss of 6 wickets. WP got their innings off to a solid start, with Alistair Gray (22) and Clyde Fortuin (43) opening with a 58 run partnership. Pieter Malan top scored with 45* runs off 38 balls. Khan was the man to bat with Malan to the end, scoring 23* off 10 deliveries and also clinching the match with a four, with two balls to spare. At the end of the round WP sits in 2nd position on the coastal log with 5 points separating them from finalists, KwaZulu-Natal Inland.

After losing the toss and being asked to bat to first, the visitors got off to flying start when openers, Matthew Kleinveldt and Alistair Gray built a solid 149-run opening partnership at Axxess St. George’s Park in Port Elizabeth on Thursday. Gray who fell just eight runs short of his century lost his wicket to Solo Nqweni when he miss timed a shot and it went straight up leading to an easy catch for Johann Smit. Kleinveldt and Pieter Malan continued adding runs to the score, also building a solid partnership of 71 runs between them. Sisanda Magala came in and gave EP a much needed breakthrough when he dismissed Kleinveldt for 82. Malan and Zubyr Hamza (23*) constructed a 52-run third wicket partnership to take WP past the 250 mark before Malan (72) edged a Nqweni delivery to second slip with Edward Moore taking that catch. WP finished Day One on 274 for the loss of three wickets in 64 overs.

Western Province (WP) will be going all out in their next Cricket South Africa (CSA) Provincial Three-day Challenge game against Eastern Province (EP) on Thursday, 27 March 2014, knowing that a victory at Axxess St Georges in Port Elizabeth should be enough to keep them at the top of the log.Going into the final round with their points on 146.58, they are only slightly ahead of North West (NW) who is on 145.90. The outcome of the game between NW and Northens could decide whether WP will end in 1st or 2nd.WP came away with a draw in their last game against KwaZulu-Natal Inland. NW will be on a high, coming away with a convincing inning’s and 112-run victory over Namibia in Potchefstroom.Shaheen Khan will be the bowler in the WP side to look out for against EP. Khan currently sits in top spot on the bowling averages with an average of 13.81. He has put in a lot of good performances with the ball and also with the bat scoring 317 runs in 7 matches.Sybrand Engelbrecht is the top WP batsmen in the Challenge and currently occupies 11th position on the list of leading batting averages, with an average of 46.63.The team to face EP is as follows: Matthew Kleinveldt, Alistair Gray, Pieter Malan, Zubayr Hamza, Sybrand Engelbrecht (capt), Shaheen Khan, Clyde Fortuin (w/k), George Linde, Thokozani Peter, Brendan Young, Brian Shushu

WPCA are hosting a varsity challenge where three of Western Province’s top varsities will face off against each other in the T20 format of the game to determine the top cricketing varsity of the province The varsity challenge takes place at Sahara Park Newlands on the 22nd and 23rd of March 2014. The teams to compete are; CPUT, UCT, UWC and Warwick. There will be a total of 6 matches (3 per day) with each team playing each other once, resulting in 3 matches per team. The winner will be determined on a point system and will receive a trophy as a result of their performance. Saturday: 10:00 – CPUT vs UCT 14:00 – UWC vs Warwick 18:00 – CPUT vs UWC Sunday: 10:00 – CPUT vs Warwick 14:00 – UCT vs UWC 18:00 – UCT vs Warwick

Western Province claimed their second consecutive Cricket South Africa (CSA) Women’s Provincial One Day Challenge Cup, by beating Kwazulu Natal by 2 wickets in the final at Kingsmead in Durban on Saturday, 15th of March 2014. The Western Province side won the toss and captain Alexis le Breton sent KZN in to bat first. Dinesha Devnarain top scored for KZN with 84 runs. At the end of the innings, good partnerships for the KZN team led them to 180 runs in their given 50 overs.

Leighshe Jacobs was the standout bowler for the WP team, getting figures of 3 wickets for 30 runs. After the innings break, WP started off their innings needing 181 runs off 50 overs to make sure of another One Day Challenge Cup. WP lost two early wickets, but Robyn Appels (20) and Le Breton (76*) scored a 3rd wicket partnership of 41 runs to get them back in the game. Wickets fell again at a stage, but le Breton kept her nerve and played a very good captain’s innings to guide her team to victory in the 50th over. WP Women’s coach, Cobus Roodt was very happy with his team’s performance and said that they had to dig really deep today, but their character and determination came through and ensured them of the win in the end.

Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA) on Thursday congratulated the Western Province (WP) Women’s team on reaching the final of the Cricket South Africa (CSA) Women’s Provincial One Day Challenge. They did so by beating Northerns Women by 73 runs at Sahara Park Newlands in the semi-final on Saturday, the 8th of March 2014. The Western Province women had a good run in the group stages only losing their opening game, against Boland in Cape Town. Road to final:

General Manager at Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA), Nabeal Dien, said,” The Western Province Women’s team have had a very good run over the past two years only missing out on one trophy and we wish them well in delivering once again. The coach and team are united in defence of this title and their energy and commitment cannot be faltered.” The final will take place at Kingsmead Stadium in Durban against KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday, 15 March 2014.

Wynberg Boys High School continued showing their good cricket form as they beat Paul Roos Gymnasium by four wickets at Boland Park in Paarl on Wednesday, 5th of March 2014. Paul Roos Gymnasium won the toss on the day and elected to bat first. Johann Siebrits and Jaco van der Watt opened the batting but soon found themselves in trouble, losing the wicket of Siebrits for only eight runs. The team never really seemed to get going as they continued losing wickets at regular intervals. Top scorer for Paul Roos on the day was De Wet Castelyn with 14 runs off 20 balls before losing his wicket to Robin Kriel, being caught out by Dyllan Matthews. In their allotted 20 overs, they only managed to score a mere 89 runs for nine wickets, with Matthews taking three wickets for 15 runs in his four over spell. Wynberg went in next and also didn’t have the best of starts. Captain Kyle Verreynne was bowled by Niel Theron for a duck and soon saw themselves having lost their first wicket with the score on one. Raythaan Addinall and Tristan de Beer managed to rebuild the innings and put on a 37-run third wicket partnership. Adrian Honing was the man to break the partnership, running out de Beer with his score on 21. Wynberg suffered a slight collapse as they lost two more wickets soon after the fall of de Beer. To make matters worse for Wynberg, top scorer Addinall fell in the 12th over to the bowling of Reinhardt Fortuin with his score on 23. With the score on 60 for six they only required 26 more runs to win the game. Mitch Lotz (15*) and Mathew Goles (17*) then managed to carry them home, reaching 87 for six with three overs to spare. By beating Paul Roos Gymnasium, Wynberg Boys High will now go to the national finals of the Coca-Cola Schools T20 Challenge in Pretoria where they will be playing as the Nashua Mobile Cape Cobras and will stand a chance to win a grand prize of R110 000 and this season’s Championship bragging rights. Although the national finals were scheduled to take place from the 14th to 16th of March 2014, persistent rain has forced tournament organisers to postponed them to a later date that will be announced in due course. Other participating schools are Grey College Bloemfontein (Chevrolet Knights), St Stithian’s College (bizhub Highveld Lions), Westville Boys’ High School (Sunfoil Dolphins), Hoërskool Waterkloof (The Unlimited Titans) and Kingswood College (Chevrolet Warriors).

WESTERN PROVINCE (WP) Women advance to the final of the Cricket South Africa (CSA) Women’s Provincial One Day challenge after they utilized their home ground advantage to sail to an easy 73 run victory over Northerns Women at Sahara Park Newlands on Saturday, 8th of March 2014. Northerns won the toss and elected to field as Newlands is a favourable fast bowlers’ pitch. The Northerns bowlers took full advantage of the pace and swing that the pitch allowed and restricted the home side to 147 all out in 49.1 overs. WP lost their first wicket in the third over of the game after opening batter, Carolyn Esterhuizen, was clean bowled by Maggie Mphohlele for just 1 run. WP struggled to cope with the visitors bowling attack and slumped to 82/7 at a stage before a well constructed 50-run 8th wicket partnership between Leighshe Jacobs and Yolani Fourie revived WP’s innings. The partnership ended when Fourie was caught for 28 off the bowling of Marcia Letsoalo. Jacobs was run out shortly afterwards only adding an additional 5 runs to the teams tally and signalling the end of WP’s recognised batsmen. Lara Goodall was the last wicket to fall when she was bowled out for 1 by Odine Kirsten. With a reasonable total of 147 to chase down, Northerns’ job looked easy, however, the Newlands pitch which favoured the visitors in the first innings, continued to favour the bowlers as WP ran rampant through the visitors’ batting line-up and dismissed the Northerns for 74 within 30 overs. Odine Kirsten was the only batsman to reach double figures when she scored 31 off 77 balls, a clear indication that the WP bowlers are a force to be reckoned with. Moseline Daniels was the star of the day by taking 4 wickets for 9 runs in her 8 over spell. Shabnim Ismail picked up 3 for 27 in 9 overs while all-rounder Robyn Appels took 2 for 18 in her 7 over spell. WP will travel to Durban where they will be defending their title against the KwaZulu-Natal team in the final on Saturday, 15 March 2014.

Defending champions, Western Province (WP), will take on 2012 champions, Northerns, in the semi-final of the Cricket South Africa (CSA) Women’s Provincial League in Cape Town on Saturday. This will be the second consecutive year that the sides meet at this stage of the competition. Last year, Western Province were the victors in Cape Town. WP captain, Alexis le Breton, is looking forward to a competitive match against one of the strongest sides in the country. She believes that Northerns will put up a better fight than they did the previous year. “We can’t rely on what happened last year,” she said. “A whole year has passed since then and both our sides have experienced some changes. We’ve prepared really well for this match so far, obviously with them (Northerns) being one of the toughest sides in the competition, we want to bring our A-game when we meet on Saturday.” Le Breton is confident her side have done what is needed to produce the goods once again. “We’re confident in our ability to play our natural game. We haven’t done anything extraordinary in preparation for the match, we’ve just kept to our winning formula and focussed primarily on ourselves,” she continued. When asked whether they will be targeting any individuals in the opposition Le Breton said; “We tend to look more to ourselves rather than the opposition, that’s how we’ve gotten ourselves this far. We have a great coach in Cobus (Roodt), who has really toughened us up mentally and we are ready to take on whatever comes our way come Saturday.” The visitors have not had a lot of outdoor practice time with all the rain that has been falling on the Highveld, but captain Mignon du Preez is cautiously optimistic about her side’s chances. “The weather hasn’t been good to us lately so all of our preparation has been indoors but we’ve done all that we can do to make sure we are at our peak on Saturday,” she commented. “It’s going to be a very interesting match, we have some new faces that are eager to prove themselves and there’s no better time and place to do it than in the semi-finals. “I believe that WP will be under more pressure than us because they have a title to defend and more to lose, so we’ll just control what we can control and get on with business when we get to Cape Town,” Du Preez concluded. In the second semi-final match, KwaZulu-Natal will host Gauteng in Durban. Both sides are on top of their respective logs.